Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

He was distracted, that's what it was.  Ever get distracted?  Ever have a second someone say, hey, what are we doing? (Oh, I've got this)  Oh, he didn't have that second someone, did he.

The Amtrak engineer whose speeding train ran off the rails in Philadelphia last year was apparently distracted by word that a train nearby had been hit by a rock, federal investigators concluded Tuesday, pinning most of the blame on him for the wreck that killed eight people.

"He went, in a matter of seconds, from distraction to disaster," National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said.

At the same time, the NTSB said a contributing factor was the railroad industry's decades-long failure to fully install Positive Train Control, equipment that can automatically slow trains that are going over the speed limit.

Had Positive Train Control been in use along that stretch of track, "we would not be here today," said Ted Turpin, an NTSB investigator.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/feds-vote-probable-deadly-amtrak-derailment-39159679